I never got to play Planescape either, it came out during my "off years from gaming" I think... Although we do do things on alternate planes of existence.

Pretty much all of my campaigns have been homespun stuff, so I haven't really done much out of the actual mileau books. The closest i've come is doing the "Legacy of Fire" arc in Pathfinder, which has been okay.

...Oh, in other news, Sumiko is Neutral again. It didn't take long to backslide from Neutral Good.

We captured a strix priest (CE) serving the evil gods and tried to interrogate him. But he was a creep and kept rubbing it in how his god was going to win and wasn't otherwise very useful. it was frustrating. His arrogance was grating.

So after the group was done, he insulted us again and Sumiko was tired of his impertinence: so she walked up and roughly grabbed his head and said, "And now it's about time you faced what you REALLY are," and for the first time used her Memory Modification ability on him, to change his memories of the last five minutes so that what he remembered was actually telling us EVERYTHING and voluntarily betraying his deity (even if he never actually did that). He was a priest with a great Will save, but the DC was a 19 and he only got an 18, so... she pulled it off.

The rest of the party was stunned into an "oh shit" moment, they had no idea she could do this.

The strix immediately lost all of his priestly powers and become a whining sniveling nobody, abandoned by his deity. he planned to sacrifice himself in front of the unholy gate in the depths of the cave, to summon something evil in order to redeem himself in the eyes of his god. The party wasn't sure whether to just kill him, I wanted to clip his wings to keep him from the gate so that he'd have to live the rest of his life "remembering" his betrayal, and the dwarf NPC finally got sick of our argument and killed him as he sat there tied up. But yes, his impertinence simply needed to be silenced. No one mocks us, especially a snivelly strix who is just a pawn of self-appointed deities.

(The Neutral Good thing just wasn't working out, ya know?)

"Hey Capa -- We're only stardust." ~ "Sunshine"

“Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty.” ~ H.P. Lovecraft

That's an awesome use of memory modification! Kinda sick, but awesome. All hail Her Grand Percipience!

(I've played and DMed almost all homebrew stuff too, though at some point I want to play all the way through some module or AP. I once played through part of The Red Hand of Doom until that group split up, and the memories are fond...)

A new guy just joined our group tonight; he's playing a Superstitious barbarian. (I know the build well, I played one myself last campaign.) Anyway, there's a fight. A bunch of strix on wyverns come towards us. I have a few soulstones left that I picked up about the time I got the balor stone (the centerpiece of my last catastrophic story here). Two are shadow demons. One is a fire elemental, we're using to power the ship. And the last is an umbral dragon.

I figured it was just around an adult age umbral dragon. But I was realizing maybe I could actually try to use some of its crazier abilities, like its Breath of Shadows (3x/day) which doesn't cause damage but blinds and weakens the targets. Perfect. They're all lined up, ready for a cone. And I can test this stone.

SO then the barbarian runs the WHOLE way across the field like a freaking, well, barbarian, and gets in my way. It finally comes to my turn, and I see I can still hit everything with this breath weapon .. but of course the barbarian will get hit too. But he's a superstitious barb, which means magic tends to roll right off his back; the saves are pretty amazing. And it was a Fort save (his best save). And even if he fails, he'll only take strength drain of 1 per dragon age bracket (which I figured was at best 5-6, as an adult dragon). So I figured he'd be fine, as opposed to anyone else in the group.

So I roll my UMD and succeed. The GM looks at me and says, "okay, we need to see what the save and the level of damage is," and we look together. And I ask him how old the dragon is, and he goes down the list of dragon ages. And goes. And goes. Past adult. Past the next levels. To the very bottom of the chart. The oldest type of dragon there is: A Great Wyrm. twelve ages of dragons, and this is the oldest and most powerful.

So yes I've been carrying a Great Wyrm umbral dragon around in my pocket. (Basically if it ever was released, we'd all die. Not quite as bad as a balor, but it would kill us just as dead. Even just being within 360' of it causes a constant debuff to most of your abilities, and that's one of its weakest powers.)

So the barbarian rolls like crap and gets a 23 on his Fort save (normally a decent save). Turns out he needed a 32 to succeed, and it's the most powerful dragon there. Almost everything in the cone is blinded for 4 rounds and loses 12 STR. Most can't even move because they're too weak to move, and the Barbarian even while raging only has an 8-10 STR left (which is average or below normal human strength). And STR drain doesn't heal like STR damage would, on its own; you have to use magical spells.

So we pretty much dispatched everything else in short order, but the barb is weaker than Sumiko at the moment. And it also means she was lucky to roll the UMD to use the gem, and that if she fails a roll, there's a possibility the powers could backfire. (I read the description of the Great Wyrm umbral dragon, and it's got really nasty stuff in its higher powers, including Wish, mass Suffocation, some kind of desiccation spell, slay living, and other nasty crap. But it's stuff I'd be scared to try, in case I blew my UMD roll and it affected the wrong target and/or me.)

on the other hand, I still have a cool soulstone left. bwa ha ha. but now I'm scared to use it.

"Hey Capa -- We're only stardust." ~ "Sunshine"

“Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty.” ~ H.P. Lovecraft

The Passacaglia class uses a d10 for hit dice (3 hp/level after 10th, in usual old school fashion), and caps out at 21st level and 5,145,000 XP. It goes from Lesser Passacaglium at 1st level to Associate Pass. to Intern Pass., and through several other titles. A passacaglia lucky and skilled enough to attain 18th level achieves the esteemed title of...

A great wyrm! Where did Sumiko get those soulstones again? They're part of the campaign plot, right?

That was a story in itself. The GM also basically "tosses in stuff" but sometimes we probably don't follow down all the possibilities.

We were on our way to a city that was mostly populated by demons or the demonic. (Don't ask. But the city had only two rules, and if you broke them, they were potentially punishable by death: Do not interfere with another being's pleasure, and no angels allowed within city limits. You can see how that could make city life unpleasant when you're surrounded by beings who could be more powerful than you, with chaotic evil impulses.)

Anyway, we ran into a lich on our way there, and he wanted us to find the being who stole his staff and return it to him. We agreed. the thief was a catfolk, and he also ran a store selling soulstones and other items. We went into the city and found his shop and were scoping it out, but he sensed we were up to no good and picked a fight with us, so there were a few ugly rounds but we killed him and locked the doors to ransack the place. We found a number of normal soulstones. Sumiko found his stash in the store. Then we found a secret door into the basement and found some more stuff. Then we found ANOTHER secret door that led into a small cramped sub-basement, and Sumiko went down alone at first and found a cache of soulstones, and that's where she acquire the stone with the monadic deva and the stone with the umbral dragon. The party didn't really know she had those for some time.

That's also where the strix failed his Will save and was forced to release the demon lord of magic, which made him his bitch and eventually resulted in tragedy for Angel Town weeks later. When the demon lord was released, he basically exploded up through the store, leaving a massive pile of rubble there and with the surrounding buildings.

And that's where Sumiko's first thrall popped out his head and led them to his underground lair, before the authorities could arrive.

...

We just leveled up to 11, so I'm a cryptic 8 / thrallherd 3 now. I'm stepping up my game; I'm going to take Master's Voice so I can speak to my underlings, and I'm going to start sending them out into the world now in pairs to preach the impending evil as well as the goodness of their Mistress, Her Grand Percipience, to try to drum up support. My cute little Mormon-y thralls, bwa ha ha ha.

"Hey Capa -- We're only stardust." ~ "Sunshine"

“Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty.” ~ H.P. Lovecraft

We're 6th level. We have two pieces of this stone that we need the third for, in order to travel the planes. We tracked down the last piece, it was being held by a crazy fire wizard (he set his own tent on fire when we entered, just to show off) and an articulate ogre with a large warhammer.

They demanded the stones and said they'd let us live and even serve them -- we could come along on their interplanar travel, if we want. (At that point, the guy in our group holding the two pieces swallowed them, to make them harder to take.) Our overall perception, after prolonged discussion, was that they really didn't want to kill us if they didn't have to, but they might accidentally strand us on some other plane of existence if we went along because they were both bonafidely nutso.

So our wizard flew over them and we attacked. (They were more powerful than us.) The one guy hit their wizard with a water blast, he failed his save, and went down. Our wizard got off a group haste, and everyone immediately charged their wizard and basically curbstomped him before he could cast anything, and after 1.5 rounds he was down for the count. The ogre was heartbroken and stepped in swinging with his 10' reach. The rogue and me (I'm playing a TWF fighter, wakizashis) took a few nasty hits in the melee that ensued, but the ogre went down after two rounds. Yeeesh. Glad that went okay, though.

... whereupon our wizard stripped everything down, even to the degree of people's fillings, and stuffed them in his magic bag. *headshake*

I just thought the whole wizard-stomping thing was funny, though. Everyone knew he was a glass cannon and couldn't be allowed to get any kind of spell off.

Last edited by Bellflower; 04-17-2015 at 01:12 PM.

"Hey Capa -- We're only stardust." ~ "Sunshine"

“Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty.” ~ H.P. Lovecraft

And so I just THIS e-mail conversation (shown only in part) with my GM, regarding Sumiko's future as potentially undead:

> How much would an appropriate type soulstone cost?
If you make it yourself, probably around half the cost of the phylactery (60k)

> The issue is as the lich discovered: Once your soul is in something, how do you protect it?
Always a difficult question — the typical choice is between keeping it close at hand or well hidden each with obvious advantages and downsides.

> Or can something that gets a hold of your soulstone manipulate you if you still have a body?
It would have a harder time, but it still could.

> Could we have tried to manipulate the lich by using his staff?
Definitely, but would angering him have been a good idea?

> if so, how come the catfolk guy never did that with him?
No UMD; also a healthy fear of retribution. Keep in mind, most soul stone users are psionic, so they don’t need UMD for other simple uses or for uses other than directly harnessing the entrapped creatures power (for example harvesting spare power points, or using them to fuel ritual effects)

> How's all that work, to the best of Sumiko's understanding, and what are the practical gains/negatives?
Once you meet the last prerequisite (ML 11), you need the focus item (the stone) and other miscellaneous ritual components (120k total including the stone). After that you need a place and time for your ascension ritual (about 12 hours uninterrupted in a suitably prepared magical ritual site).

As to the details — Your shrine would count as a ritual site, and your believers could procure materials to reduce the direct need for you to pay all be the most difficult part of the cost (the soul stone). You still have suitable soul stone blanks you could facet to make one (which your studies of the chapters of the book I still owe you would explain). As a reasonable suggestion I’d recommend (given her general resilience and ridiculous ability to escape dangerous situations) replacing your heart with the stone upon completion of the ritual.

(Definition of the Aberrant subtype: this creature counts as an aberration for effects that specifically target of have extra effect on aberrations, and as the base type for all other purposes)

Negatives:
You are undead, negative energy/positive energy, you will be seen as evil (becoming a lich is an evil act but does not necessarily change your alignment to evil permanently), immunity to mind affecting effects can be annoying (they don’t work unless harmless even if it would be helpful), general district of your party members would go through the roof, followers of Kormir would probably consider you kill on sight unless a very good defense was given, eventually without magic your body will decay

All-in-all I’d say it’s a fairly good choice (says the guy known for playing necromancers).

My main response was, "How can I *not* do this? In what other campaign will I have the opportunity to play a high-level psionic thrallherd tengu lich?" Help.

“Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty.” ~ H.P. Lovecraft

- We found an abandoned tengu youngster [he had snuck out of the city in a crate and been captured by raiders], and Sumiko's maternal instinct kicked in and she wouldn't let anyone take care of him but her... although she spent most of the time on the trip back to his family (1) telling him wondrous stories about great heroes of mental prowess and (2) forcing him to learn protection skills from Carnage, the feral gnome. Unfortunately, the boy had no latent psionic potential or real talents of note, so instead of subverting him [e.g., she could have planted abusive memories of his parents, if she had been really twisted], she took him back, chewed out his parents, and intimidated them to such a large degree that they will bring the boy to her shrine yearly for worship and also to be trained. Booya.

- Sumiko started sending out her believers in groups of two, like Mormon missionaries, across the realm to set up shrines for her in all the major cities and preach the word about the impending cataclysm and how Sumiko can save them and trying to drum up help/resources.

- We realized the dwarf brawler who annoyed the crap out of us and who had murdered his brother the king centuries before (resulting in a curse where he cannot die) had been mentally dominated. Sumiko went into his head and found a walled-off section and released it, and the resulting memories gave us a much better picture of the politics of that time and what might have happened, as well as leaving the dwarf a sobbing heap on the floor.

- Sumiko suspects that the new party member (the ratfolk cleric who has been hitting on her) is really her old pal Tristan in disguise. After all, it's the same PC running this new character, after Tristan got kicked out for being irredeemably evil and releasing the balor upon the city we call Angeltown. And they're both clerics. And Schnitzel seems kind of off. And Tristan's master is the Demon Lord of Magic -- quite capable of polymorphing a servant and hiding his true alignment from us, so that he might spy on us. And when I cracked a joke about it during the game session last night, the PC didn't respond like normal to jokes, he kind of gave me a short perfunctory laugh and then kept looking the other way as if trying to ignore what I was saying. So even if she's wrong, Sumiko will now start dropping comments/jokes about her old Strix friend ("birds of a feather, eh? nudge nudge") and trying to get him to out himself to her. If she's right, it's amusing; if she's wrong, it's even more hilarious.

- We got mythic powers, so we made up one for Sumiko. She had taken Master's Voice, so she had a permanent no-cost no-distance-limit mindlink to her thrall Carnage. Her mythic version is Improved Master's Voice and allows her to have a permanent no-cost no-distance-limit to CL + Int bonus [for her, currently = 15] to her believer pool that she can shift to other believers at any time as a swift action. IOW, she basically can talk to and monitor her believers across the land at any time, within a few seconds.

"Hey Capa -- We're only stardust." ~ "Sunshine"

“Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty.” ~ H.P. Lovecraft